TEES ARE TOPS; HORIZON GROWS WITH TRENDY FASHION STATEMENTS

James Dean made them a social statement.

Business made them an advertising statement.

Crafters made them an artistic statement.

Any way you look at T-shirts these days, the statement they make is simple and potent: T-shirts are tops now.

The simple T-shirt has come a long way from the plain-white cotton top worn as an undergarment by men.

Now worn by men and women as leisure-look outerwear, the T-shirt is a fashion staple that isn't likely to go out of fashion any time soon.

Young women feel no less feminine with a T-shirt; they look casual with jeans or dressy with slacks, and they can be coordinated with skirts, jumpers and pants.

Guys are also wearing T-shirts with jeans and casual slacks.

Although traditional cotton is still the favorite of many, T-shirts are being made in such fabrics as velour, rayon, and nylon blends. And they're not traditional T-shirts any more' many feature V-necklines and lace-up fronts.

"The T-shirt started making its appearance as outerwear following movies in which James Dean and Marlon Brando played starring roles wearing T-shirts," said Rhoda Reeves, a Cape Girardeau businesswoman.

James Dean was a teenage rebel in movies "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Wild One" during the mid-1950s, and Marlon Brando was a rebel of sorts in his appearance in the 1950s movie "A Streetcar Named Desire."

"Following these movies youngsters started wearing the T-shirts as outerwear, and it quickly spread to adults," said Reeves, whose business involves making T-shirts even more attractive for wearers.

Nobody really knows when the first screen art processors placed the first picture on a T-shirt, but by the mid-1960s T-shirts were being decorated in a number of ways.

Retail shops featured rack upon rack of the T-tops in all colors, decorated with sequins, beads, feathers, even fragrances which permeated the air when the wearer scratched the appropriate spot.

During this era the most popular T-shirts were those printed with "famous faces" movie and television stars, rock 'n' roll stars and other musical groups and meaningful messages.

T-shirts suddenly became the biggest sellers at many stores that previously had saved their space for coordinated sweaters and skirts and tailored shirts.

Schools, businesses and other groups hit upon the idea of having T-shirts decorated to sell, either as fund-raisers, or as a means of advertising.

"There has been no letup," said Reeves' husband, Glenn Reeves. "New screen-printing companies have sprung up across the nation, providing new jobs and a new product to the country's economy."

In 1990 and 1991, more than a billion T-shirts were sold in the United States alone.

One of those new companies was Horizon Screen Printing of Cape Girardeau, which was founded by Rhoda Reeves in 1983 as a part-time basement business for three housewives.

"I remember the first order we had," said Mrs. Reeves. "We had an order from the Scouts for 200 T-shirts. It took us three weeks to fill the order. Now we could do the same job in an hour."

"I used to clean the screens with a water hose," said Glenn Reeves, who was just helping out before taking an early retirement from Sears to join the company on a full-time basis.

"I really never meant for it to become a full-time business," said Mrs. Reeves. "But I was trying to keep up. When we went full time, we were using one four-color printer and a small dryer."

The company now has two, six-color, automatic printers.

"We can produce as many as 10,000 decorated shirts a day now," said Glenn Reeves. "We had three days of 10,000 runs last week. An East Coast company ordered 35,000 shirts."

Reeves emphasized, however, that Horizon takes on all orders, small or large. "we're happy to take on orders as few as one dozen," he said. "And we have numerous orders of 100 and 200."

Although the new, automatic machines can turn out thousands of T-shirts, the Reeves say their primary base of business remains in Cape Girardeau, Southern Illinois and the Bootheel.

"We'll take anything 12 or up," said Glenn Reeves. "We have people come in and order 12 shirts for family reunions, holidays, and other special occasions."

"The small customers are still the fun part of the business," said Mrs. Reeves. "The big orders are like a factory. With the small customers we can create. That's one of the reasons I started the company and that is one of the reasons I still love it."

Reeves said Horizon uses only high-quality, U.S.-made shirts for the majority of orders.

"The U.S. shirts are high-quality shirts made of only high-quality cotton," he said. "We don't fool with imports unless a customer requests them. And some customers, though, do want a lower-priced shirt."

Essentially, the T-shirt started as underwear and graduated to outerwear. Although its origins are murky, one story is that British sailors were ordered to sew short sleeves on their undershirts to spare royal eyes the sight of hairy underarms.

Another theory, according to Smithsonian, a publication of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., says the name is blamed on under-shirted longshoremen unloading tea in 17th century Annapolis. "Tea" became "T" and the rest is history.

One thing is sure, claim historians. The U.S. Navy adopted the crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt in 1913, to be worn under a jumper in part to cover the sailors' chest hair. The T-shirt became a treasured gear for men and women who served in service during World War II. They were easily washed, looked neat and could later be used to polish belt buckles and shoes.

Marlon Brando guaranteed the garment's place in the image of the American working class in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Brando received a nomination for top actor for his portrayal of a macho, mean-spirited, T-shirt-clad lug named Stanley Kowalski.

By the late 1960s, T-shirts were being tie-dyed, painted and silk-screened with signs of peace and other symbols. It wasn't until the 1970s, however, that decorated T-shirts exploded into an international forum for publicizing personal feelings, philosophies, political candidates and consumer goods.

The oldest printed T-shirt in the Smithsonian collection is a child-size model that reads, "Dew-it With Dewey," a relic of New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey's unsuccessful campaign against Harry S Truman.

As the baby boomers grew up, so did the T-shirts. Drag races and surfers on the West Coast started taking designs they'd been airbrushing onto hot rods and surfboards and placing them on T's. Around the country, plain and tie-dyed T's were becoming fixtures in young people's wardrobes.

Hard Rock cafes have helped make the T-shirt business a booming one. Each weekend thousands line up at Hard Rock locations in Dallas, Chicago, Washington D.C., London and other cities to hand over from $15 to $20 for a T-shirt. With sales in the millions, the restaurant chain brings in almost as much cash for T-shirts as for food and drink.

Hard Rock's price is meager compared to some designer T's, which can run from $40 to more than $800.

Nobody knows when or if the T-shirt craze will end. But what seems clear is that as long as Americans feel the need to get stuff off their chests, the T-shirt is likely to stay on their backs.